Final Kiwanis Park master plan presented for DeKalb Park District Board's review

DeKALB – For months, Plainfield-based Upland Design has been working to finalize a master plan for Kiwanis Park, a site primarily used for its soccer fields.

What initially started out as two draft plans merged into one after two public hearings and a stakeholder meeting. The finished product was presented to the DeKalb Park District board Thursday during its regularly scheduled meeting.

Michelle Kelly, principal landscape architect for Upland Design, said all of the public input was awesome and a lot of comments were used to move the design plans closer to what residents requested.

“What you see here really reflects what a lot of different sectors of the community were looking for,” Kelly said.

The end result was a site with a flexible field layout featuring two large soccer fields, four medium-sized soccer fields, four small soccer fields and an artificial turf field for soccer, lacrosse or rugby.

Additional amenities will include a nature playground, splash pad, challenge course, pickleball and basketball courts, pavilion, fitness stations, picnic shelter, restroom and a woodland exploration area.

Kelly said that challenge courses are becoming extremely popular and the park district in Schaumburg advised her that officials could not believe the number of kids it was bringing into parks.

The woodland exploration area, meanwhile, was preferred over a new dog park and would promote activities, such as bird-watching within the park.

“It really complements a community park,” Kelly said.

Since the designs were only a plan and had no funding mechanism in place, park board President Phil Young asked whether the project would be done in phases if things moved forward.

Kelly said her firm looked at a six-phase plan, with the last phase focusing on artificial turf. She added that at least two phases would be eligible for the Open Space Lands Acquisition and Development Program, a state-financed grant to help develop land for public parks, but it is unclear whether such funding would be released in this fiscal year.

Young also asked whether the plan would be altered if the park district were to acquire nearby land through a land swap with DeKalb School District 428.

Kelly said she hasn’t fully looked into that, but it would be investigated during the planning process of any project.

An intergovernmental agreement to authorize the land swap, which was approved by the District 428 board Tuesday, also was approved by the park board later in the meeting.

The park district property, an estimated 9.6-acre site at Cutler Drive and Bethany Road appraised at $221,000, and the District 428 property, a nearly 12-acre site at Barb Boulevard and First Street appraised at $216,000, would transfer at no additional cost to either district. Amy Doll, executive director of the park district, said this transaction had been discussed several years ago but never came to fruition.

As part of the intergovernmental agreement, there also would be an easement on District 428’s property that would give the park district access between Kiwanis Park and the baseball fields that would be owned by the park district.

The meeting itself took place in the park district's recently finished maintenance building on Locust Street and was preceded by an open house tour of the $1.4 million facility.

Mat Emken, superintendent of parks and development, said equipment was moved over to the building at the end of October, but the site wasn’t operational until the start of the year. During that time, shelving, work benches and other assets were installed.

“The [grand opening] delay was so we could show what we were going to do with the space instead of just showing an empty barn,” Emken said.